Breed follows court ruling giving cities more power to move people off the streets.
SAN FRANCISCO — James Reem has lived in a tent on the corner of Fell and Baker streets for more than a year. An artist by trade, he said he was evicted from his apartment after troubles with his landlord and for a time lived out of a van. After the van got towed, someone gave him a tent and he turned to the streets.
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His tent sits outside the city’s only DMV office, across the street from the Panhandle, a lush strip of greenery that opens into Golden Gate Park in a family-friendly neighborhood adorned by rows of manicured Victorians.
It’s a comfortable spot, said Reem, 59, with a sidewalk wide enough to accommodate his tent and still leave room for pedestrians. Some days, Reem is one of a dozen or more tent-dwellers on the concrete stretch.
“There are a few of us that stick together,” Reem said.
His adopted neighborhood is among dozens of sites likely to be targeted as the city launches what Mayor London Breed has said will be an assertive campaign to force people off the streets in response to a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
An estimated 8,300 people are living homeless in San Francisco. And despite a years-long effort to move people into temporary shelter or permanent housing, unsanctioned encampments remain a widespread and visible problem, often accompanied by garbage, theft and open drug use.
For years, Breed and other city officials said their hands were tied by decisions issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers many Western states, that deemed it cruel and unusual punishment to penalize someone for sleeping on the streets if no legal shelter was available.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision in a pivotal June 28 ruling, saying that cities in California and the West may enforce laws restricting homeless encampments on sidewalks and other public property.
On Thursday, citing the ruling, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order requiring state agencies to remove encampments in their jurisdictions. While the directive doesn’t require cities to follow suit, Newsom urged them to do so, characterizing the proliferation of encampments as a health and safety hazard that requires immediate action.
Breed, a fellow Democrat, has also embraced the ruling. She said last week that, armed with the high court’s decision, she will spearhead a “very aggressive” effort to clear homeless encampments beginning in August. She said the effort could include criminal penalties for refusing to disperse.
Breed was not available for an interview Friday, and her office has yet to provide details of what the sweeps will entail or where people living in tents are expected to relocate. Her spokesperson, Jeff Cretan, said some of those details would come into clearer focus this week.
During a July 18 mayoral debate hosted by the local firefighters union, Breed acknowledged her decision to orchestrate sweeps was “not a popular” one but said it was a necessary step.
“We have had to move from a compassionate city to a city of accountability,” she said. “And I have been leading the efforts to ensure we are addressing this issue differently than we have before.”
She said the city has worked over the last several years to add shelter beds and disperse outreach workers to offer services and support. But even when outreach workers offer shelter, according to the mayor’s office, those offers are rejected nearly 70% of the time.
Move them to the source of California’s many problems, Capital Mall and L Streets in Sacramento.
Well put!
The question becomes one since the Democrats helped create this multi-decades problem with magnet welfare, etc. what are they going to do to justify making people work for welfare.
After all that is only fair. You want taxpayer money work for it.
I find it curious that NOW they care about vagrants all over the place, LITERALLY? Why? Would have been good to have that addressed in the article. Someone coming to town? Newsom hoping to be the VP pick? I hear he cleared his calendar when Cabala took the helm.